Proretina meeting 2025 edition
On the 4th and 5th of April 2025 Proretina meeting took place, like every year, in Potsdam. Our associated partner Proretina is organizing this event every year, joining vision scientists from all corners of the world in one single and wonderful place surrounded by nature.
Last year our Consortium was also there, for the in person introductory meeting as well attending the conference.
Nathalie, our DC3, participated for the second year consecutive, presenting her poster “Establishing plasmid-mediated expression of circular RNA-based TrĸB-aptamers against AMD“.
Below some insights from her poster:
Establishing plasmid-mediated expression of circular RNA-based TrĸB-aptamers against AMD
Nathalie Smeets, José Hurst, Sven Schnichels
Section for Translational Research in Ophthalmology
Universitäts-Augenklinik, Elfriede-Aulhorn-Str. 7, Tübingen, Germany
Purpose
Apoptosis is responsible for photoreceptor and retinal pigment epithelium cell death in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The anti-apoptotic brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) levels in the aqueous humor of AMD patients were significantly decreased. However, treatment with BDNF leads to overstimulation of the TrĸB receptor and severe side effects. Therefore, a partial agonistic RNA-based TrĸB-aptamer is used to compensate for the decreased BDNF levels. The TrĸB-aptamer is expressed using the ToRNAdo expression system to ensure a constant supply of the aptamer and reduce the degradation sensitivity.
Feedback from Nathalie
The main topic of Pro Retina 2025 was signaling and metabolism in retinal diseases. The retinal metabolism and associated pathways are a bit out of my comfort zone but an understanding of these mechanisms is essential to develop therapies against retinal diseases. Personally, I enjoyed the selected poster presentations of young researchers the most. It gave insight into the research of peers. Moreover, Prof. Francois Paquet-Durand gave an interesting overview of anaplerotic metabolism in photoreceptor cells in his talk.
Greetings,
RETORNA team